Last week I had a call I had an important call regarding some health complications my mom’s been going through. The life coach I’ve been working with for a year now recommended this man, who I’ll call Tim, to see if he’d have anything to share about gall stones.

I wanted to know about any nutritional tips procedures I could recommend for my mom. I could not believe what happened next (that would be my title if I was writing this for buzzworthy).

In all seriousness, while I was on the phone Tim asked a series of questions about my family life, my mom’s past and what she has to deal with on a daily basis.

“Is your father an angry guy?”“How does everyone get along in your family?”“Does she have any relatives close by?”“Does she have girlfriends that she gets to see often?”

Some might think that he was being too nosy, that these issues aren’t really something you disclose to someone who doesn’t have the right credentials. Still, I was open to hearing what he had to say and answered his questions as openly and honestly as I could.

Seeing the general trend in his questions, I could tell that a person’s mental/emotional environment had a lot more to do with treating the gallstones. For me, the thought of cutting out the gall bladder to heal the pain always made me cringe. Now I know that the procedure wouldn’t do anything to alleviate the bigger issues in a person’s life which led to the stones in the first place.

Besides these issues about family life, there I did get some recommendations for what I could tell my mom to take (Milk Thistle, Dandelion, and too many other things to list here). Furthermore, Tim said my mom would need to undergo a drastic dietary change and she would need someone to help her make the change (implying that it’d have to be me).

After he gave these recommendations about nutrition, he inquired more about my life, to get a sense of how I was doing.

“Well, are you happy living there [at home]?”

I thought for a few moments to reflect on how I interact with my family. It’s not like we throw objects at each other, but there’s still moments of impatience that I’d rather do without.

“It’s not ideal… It’d be nicer to live somewhere else.”

He pressed further, and I was appreciating the suddent change in direction for the conversation.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No… no, I don’t”

There was a long pause.

Although I’d love to expand on this further, what I really took from this conversation was how important it is for everyone to take responsibility for their own well-being – for the sake of others. In the same way that the effects of cancer cells can’t be localized to one organ, negative emotions and actions can’t be localized to one individual. These things spread out. And with that comes the realization that the best thing you can do for others, is be a happy and healthy individual yourself.